


For Better Or Worse

by criticalwhale



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/F, FLARP, Gen, Mind Control, Scourge Sisters, idk what quadrant they're aiming for and i don't think they do either, pre hivebent, theyre both so terrible i love them so much
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-07
Updated: 2016-04-07
Packaged: 2018-05-31 19:27:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6484570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/criticalwhale/pseuds/criticalwhale
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which the Scourge Sisters decide the fate of an opposing Flarp team with the help of terrible logic, Terezi's obsession with law and justice, and Vriska's tendency to fuck everything up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	For Better Or Worse

“They played by the rules!” Terezi argues, gesturing broadly to the two trolls hogtied in the back of the cave. 

“You think that two olivebloods could have lasted half an hour against the two of us without cheating?” Vriska counters. Her boot taps against the empty barrel serving as her perch, creating a dull, thudding rhythm. 

“I would have noticed if they cheated. You’re just mad that they didn’t fall for your trap!”

“I’m not mad! I don’t get mad!” Terezi lets out a harsh, barking giggle loud enough to make both captive trolls wince. “Hey! Stop doing that!”

“Stop doing what?” the tealblood asks, widening her eyes comically in an attempt to look innocent. 

Vriska scowls in response, leaning back against the cave wall. “It’s not like you have any right to laugh! You’re the one that nearly cost us the match!”

Holding a palm dramatically to her mouth, the other troll lets out a gasp. “Really? It was my fault that you didn’t hide the trap? Oh, Mindfang, how could I have made such a dire mistake?”

The other ignores her, mouth flickering upward at the familiar nickname while discarding the rest of the retort. “You didn’t realize that they were about to ambush you! If it hadn’t been for me, that one would have gotten you for sure!” Her boot taps against the head of the smaller oliveblood, the captive troll wincing and drawing away to the best of their ability in response.

“We didn’t actually want to kill anyone,” they mutter into the dirt of the floor. “Unlike some trolls I could mention…”

Terezi ignores them, sunglass-clad eyes focusing on Vriska instead. “I can handle myself against trolls like these,” she counters. For half a second, the self-righteous smirk situated perpetually on the tealblood’s face shifts into a look of confusion. It’s gone a moment later, replaced by that annoying confidence the other seems to possess no matter the circumstance, but Terezi’s words are slower than usual when she adds, “If they had ambushed me, I’m certain that I would have been able to take care of it myself.”

A stab of concern flares in Vriska’s chest, but she pushes it down, matching Terezi’s cocky grin with her own bored smile. “Whatever. You can brag all you want, Redglare, but that doesn’t change the fact that I saved your butt back there! You owe me one!”

“And you think that that means I should let you decide the fate of these criminals?”   
The ceruleanblood rolls her eyes. “Yes??”

“Vriska, that’s not how the law works. Legislacerators don’t let their personal feelings get in the way of justice.”

“Suuuuuuuure they don’t,” Vriska mutters, recalling at least a dozen instances in which Terezi’s behavior would suggest the contrary. “And it’s Mindfang, not Vriska! In case if you haven’t noticed, we haven’t ended the Flarp session because someone’s being too stubborn.”

Terezi, in a quite professional manner, sticks out her tongue. The two members of Team Scourge meet each other’s eyes for a moment, to the best of their ability considering the teardrop screens of impractical red plastic between them, before Vriska tears away from the gaze with a scowl. A debate with Terezi every once in a while could be amusing, but when the other girl became too stubborn in her obsession with ‘justice’ it took all of the enjoyment out of arguing.

For a moment, a silence settled through the cave, broken only by the sound of its various inhabitants breathing. Then, sheepishly, the other oliveblood interjected. “Um, are the two of you planning on letting us go pretty soon?”

“Yes,” says Terezi.

“No,” says Vriska.

Then, in unison, the two finish with a heartfelt, “Shut up.” 

The oliveblood, heedless, continues. “It’s just that my matesprit was expecting me back soon, and he’ll probably be upset if you, you know, do anything to us. He’s a violetblood, you know. He’s very powerful.”

Vriska glances from the oliveblood to Terezi, pointing accusingly. “That was a threat! He just threatened us!”

“Hmm?”

“He said that his highblood matesprite would beat us up if we pass judgement on them,” Vriska continues, slipping in one of Terezi’s favorite buzzwords in her excitement. 

“I never said that,” the oliveblood protests, but the other quickly shushes him.

“Not that some prissy violetblood loser could ever touch the two of us, but-“

Terezi sighs, leaning unsteadily against her prop cane. “I think you have a rather small sample size when it comes to passing judgement on seadwellers,” she objects.

“Hey, don’t bring Ampora into this! This wriggler threatened us to influence our decision.” Vriska hopped off of the barrel, taking a few steps closer to her friend before adding, “Even you have to admit that threatening an officer of the law is inexcusable.”

Red glasses shift, Terezi’s head cocking to the side momentarily in a look of contemplation. She turns towards the olivebloods, both of them rapidly loosing all of the green in their complexions. “True,” she says, simply, and the two start wriggling in unison. “It considered by most trolls to be both highly illegal and a dick move to threaten a Legislacerator.”

The eyes of the olivebloods express a condescending doubt that Terezi and Vriska are over five sweeps, much less in a position to even consider themselves Legislacerators or the like. But the words that tumble out of their mouth, slurring together desperately, are more along the line of, “We’re sorry,” or “I mean no disrespect,” or, “It will never happen again.” In other words, Vriska decides, both of them are weak willed cowards. No wonder it was so easy to control them. 

Terezi holds up one gloved finger, and both captive trolls grow quiet. “I am glad that you have seen the error in your ways,” she says, only slightly arrogant, and the olivebloods let out a collective sigh. “But pleading guilty in Regular’s court does not negate the fact that you’re both criminals!”

Seizing the opportunity, Vriska leans forward, eager to jump in while she has the chance. “That means that I can take them without you whiiiiiiiining more, right?” She demands.

She can see the hesitation on Terezi’s face, her insistence on passing whatever she considers ‘careful judgement’ on that day of the week preventing her from making a hasty decision. “It was only one infraction, Mindfang,” she says. “We could let them off on probation. I’m certain that neither of them would ever think of insulting an officer of the law in such a way again.” The olivebloods, predictably, make loud noises of agreement at this sentiment. 

“Pshh,” Vriska says. She spits at the cave wall, lets a look of bored relaxation fall over her face. “It’s almost dawn, Redglare. Do you really want to fight about this all day?” Terezi’s composure lapses for a second. She knows that Vriska would go for it, trap them in this cave all day for no other purpose then hammering in her point - both of them had pulled stunts like that before, seized on the opportunity to get their way after a Flarp session and refused to let go until the other side gave in from exhaustion. The tealblood covers it with a mask of razor-edged indifference a millisecond later, but it’s far too late for Vriska not to take notice.

“We’ve still got more than an hour before dawn. More than enough time to give them the conditions of probation.” But Terezi’s gaze is already slipping to the lip of the cave, to where the Alternian sky has melted from deep blood purple to a lighter grey. Her partner knows that she’s being manipulated. They both know each other too well to be fooled by the other in such a casual manner. But she can see in the other’s posture that Terezi isn’t invested enough to fight back against the time limit. Vriska’s won.

“You said it yourself. They’re criminals. A little bit of fear’s not enough to stop them from disrespecting the law again.”

“And if they did, that would be on me,” Terezi says, agreeing. 

“Yeah! You can’t let them-“ Vriska’s nearly forgotten what the olivebloods did to offend Terezi’s sense of justice, nearly substitutes in the infraction of the kid who had said Terezi would never be a real Legislacerator from two weeks ago before remembering at the last second that they’d- “try and bribe an officer again!” Terezi nods, slowly, begins to open her mouth, but Vriska starts speaking again before she can do so. “And they didn’t just insult an officer, you know! They cheated, tried to ambush you…”

“We didn’t cheat!” One of the olivebloods says, with increasing desperation.

“And ambushing you was perfectly legal, Miss Legislacerator,” the other declares. “I’m sure you would have stopped me just fine, even if your friend hadn’t told me to stop first!”

The look of confusion from earlier pops up on Terezi’s face. “Told you to stop?” She says, placing emphasis on the first word.

The two olivebloods attempt to the best of their ability to exchange what can only be described as A Look. “Yeah, told us,” one says, as if this should be obvious, and Vriska can see as the dots connect in Terezi’s head. 

It takes Vriska only a few seconds for the ‘oh, shit’ realization to come and pass, for her to reach out to the mushy, gullible minds of the two olivebloods and command them to stop talking. They comply, of course, mouths hanging open dumbly, but Vriska feels her heart sink and knows that it is too late. 

“Vriska,” Terezi says, and Vriska doesn’t even correct her on the use of her real name, “You were on the other side of the map from me the whole match.” The tealblood pauses, leaving her a moment to respond, but she lets it pass. “I had thought that you had made up the ambush, or perhaps foiled it with your stupid traps. But they both said you ‘told them’ not to… Vriska, the only way that you could have ‘told them’ to do anything from that far away is with your mind shenanigans.” 

She takes in the mixture of anger and disappointment that has settled across Terezi’s face, and immediately feels her anger boiling over. “Fine,” Vriska snaps. “Whatever. I did the mindy thing. It’s not my fault if these two wrigglers were too dumb to notice that I was controlling them!”

“That’s cheating, Vriska,” Terezi says in the stern voice she reserves for moments where she has obtained the moral high ground. “We agreed that it wasn’t fair when you did that!”

“So?” Vriska challenges. 

“So? I can’t convict trolls for cheating and disrespecting the law when my partner cheats and disrespects the law!” Terezi cries. “Justice may be many things, but the one thing it isn’t is a hypocrite!”

She snorts. “Did that come from Troll Judge Judy or your buddy Legislacerator comedies?” 

“Comedies,” the tealblood admits. “But that’s not the point! Under a circumstance like this, I can’t convict these criminals! We’re letting them go, Vriska. I’m not debating this.”

The olivebloods start shouting words of thanks and relief, but this time it only takes a sharp mental tug to shut them both up. “I could just take them,” Vriska threatens. “Whether you approve or not.” 

“If you won’t play by our rules,” Terezi counters, “I can find someone else to Flarp with.”

The threat is childish. It’s something they’ve both threatened before, for reasons far more petty and far more serious. There are a million counters that Vriska can make, a million alternative Flarp partners that would beg for her to join their teams. She has no reason to listen her partner.

“Terezi,” she says instead, stops.

“Yes?” 

Vriska scowls at the other girl’s tone. Instead of retorting, however, she merely flips her hair over her shoulder, flopping back down against the barrel with an overdramatic sigh. “Fiiiiiiiine,” she says, drawing out the sound for eight beats in her head. “You can cut these wrigglers loose like a wimpy loser if you want.”

“No more mind control,” Terezi demands, and Vriska raises her head just high enough to glare.

“If you’re not going to cut them loose, maybe I should take them after all.” Terezi sighs, and shakes her head disapprovingly, but she also shuts up. Vriska counts this as a victory. 

She lets out a yawn as Terezi pulls a long blade from the part of her cane that serves as a sheath, watches with only a little boredom as her partner frees the two overly thankful and apologetic olivebloods and ushers them into the early morning light. Terezi gathers her own things, and Vriska’s as an afterthought; takes off the weird red glasses that Vriska could never see anything through and hangs them in her collar so she can better wipe her brow clean of blue-tinged sweat. Vriska closes her eyes for a moment, squeezing them shut hard enough that her head starts to burn, and when she opens them Terezi is standing in front of her with her arm extended.

“Come on,” Terezi says, pulls her up. They stare at each other, Vriska half supported by her partner. “Vriska-”

“We should Flarp again a week from now,” Vriska interrupts. She wrenches herself the rest of the way up, nearly dragging Terezi down in the process. “I know you’re free. Maybe if I save your ass for you next time, you’ll actually thank me. ”

She can tell that Terezi is pissed, that Terezi wants to continue her high-and-mighty mind control discussion from earlier. Vriska’s pissed, too - pissed that she got so close to winning, pissed that she gave up. But she doesn’t say anything, and Terezi doesn’t either. The tealblood only nods, eyes guarded, accepting this compromise.

“Yeah,” she says, “If you don’t fuck up your traps again."

"Hey!" Vriska shouts, indignant, and Terezi lets out a cackling laugh. A minute later, Vriska joins in too, not really knowing what there is to laugh at but making a begrudging effort nonetheless.

For better or worse, their hands are still linked when they walk outside.

**Author's Note:**

> how about that [s] collide tho


End file.
